The Lolldaiga Hills Ranch Bird List reaches 369 species!

By Tom Butynski & Yvonne de Jong, Lolldaiga Hills Research Programme
A new bird list bird list has been compiled for Lolldaiga Hills Ranch.
A new bird list bird list has been compiled for Lolldaiga Hills Ranch.
It is 5:30 am and I have just gotten in my car and put the heater on against the cold equatorial night air. I’m heading out from my home on the Burguret River towards Nanyuki, where I am meeting with Paul Benson, a professional wildlife photographer.
Two days ago, on 29 May 2015, we found an active Verreaux’s eagle (Aquila verreauxi) nest near the northwest corner of Lolldaiga Hills Ranch. From our one-night camp, located about 200 m from the nest, we watched the adult pair flying to and from the nest and hunting along the ridges of the nearby granitic hills.
Pastoralist economies, relying on the keeping of cattle to meet their subsistence needs, have existed in Kenya for at least 3000 years, when a drying climate in the Sahara encouraged herders to move south from the Nile Valley and southern Ethiopia, becoming integrated with hunter-gatherers.
African wild dogs were extirpated from most of Laikipia in the 1980s, but have recolonised the area successfully, and now number about 30 packs (approximately 300 individuals).